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Justice delayed at the TCHC: Fiorito

Gene Jones is a flawed actor in an important role, his fate hangs in the balance.

Rita De Biasi, left, of 250 Davenport, said Toronto Community Housing CEO Gene Jones never followed up on their complaints. Cliff Martin, a tenant rep at 200 Wellesley, is in Jones’ corner, and Kathy Kunsmann, of 325 Bleecker, would be happy to see Jones go because it seems he is planning to do away with the tenant rep system.
(JOE FIORITO / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

Gene Jones is not Wyatt Earp, the Toronto Community Housing Corp. is not the O.K. Corral and Toronto is not Tombstone, Ariz.

You can’t just walk into town and start shooting, even if Rob Ford is the one who pinned the star on your chest. We like Mounties up here.

Jones didn’t — maybe he still doesn’t, and maybe he never will — get that. He was hired to clean up a mess at TCHC, and he thought all he needed to solve the problem was his guns, blazing.

The city ombudsman found he hired his own posse, seemingly on a whim, promoted and rewarded some of them without hindrance, and at the same time he left the ground around him littered with the bodies and the careers of people he didn’t like. That’s not to say I wouldn’t have sacked some of those people myself.

But there’s a right way and a wrong way to clear away the deadwood; instead of cleaning things up, Jones made a bigger mess. Which is why the ombudsman smacked him around like a cheap piñata.

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Oddly, or perhaps aptly, her conclusions are strikingly similar in intent to other reports examining the inner workings of TCHC:

Jones was recently ordered to take some remedial management training as a result of his high-handedness. Sadly, none of the 41 people he fired — without cause — in the past 18 months were accorded the same privilege. I’m sorry for some of them.

Who suffers most?

Tenants.

Duh.

I can’t say I know Jones well. We have talked on occasion. I know he played football in college. He has a family. He came here on his own. He likes smooth jazz; on this, we disagree. He also has a military background, and as a result he is a disciplinarian who tends to see most things as black or white; here, we also disagree.

But I have also tagged along with him when he showed up at TCHC buildings, alone and unannounced, in order to observe the state of repair; no other CEO, in my experience, has had the nerve to knock on tenants’ doors at random to ask about their problems.

On more than one occasion, I have sat at the back in tenant meetings when he knew he was walking into a firestorm of complaint or, worse, a stagnant pool of apathy. He is a flawed champion; some tenants love him because he listens, takes them seriously and demands action. One night, well after the supper hour, I saw him whip out his phone during a tenant meeting and direct one of his staff to get on a problem, now.

No other CEO, etc.

And yet, the ombudsman found he has also fired people at will, and on his watch salaries have been adjusted almost whimsically; some staff were hired without reference checks; record-keeping seemed capricious; job competition was a formality. But in my mind, this is his greatest sin: not all buildings in the TCHC portfolio are accorded the same attention.

Cliff Martin, a tenant rep at 200 Wellesley, is in Jones’ corner, with good reason. “He had a meeting here. There were 31 complaints. Everything got done.”

Rita De Biasi, of 250 Davenport, looked askance at hearing this; tenants in her building have taken TCHC to the Landlord and Tenant Board over a variety of issues, including what they say is a longstanding lack of security and maintenance.

Rita and her neighbours once had a meeting with Jones at TCHC headquarters. She said, “We had issues with bedbugs and cockroaches. We went to see him. We were there 20 minutes. He kept saying he’d look after it. He never followed up.”

Kathy Kunsmann, of 325 Bleecker, would be happy to see Jones go, in no small part because it seems he is planning to do away with the tenant rep system.

The fate of Jones hangs in the balance now.

Morale at TCHC was bad when he took over; it is worse now. And, ultimately, the lives of tenants have not changed much. That’s what makes me sad.

Jones should have known this is not the Wild West; this is the true north, and here is an iron principle in these parts:

The ends do not justify the means.

There is another old saw which Jones would do well to reflect on this evening, as he listens to his George Benson records:

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